Rebolledo - Momento Drive

Rebolledo - Momento Drive
The artwork for Momento Drive recreates the sleeve of Wally On The Road, an album by 1970s Filipino blues-rocker Wally Gonzalez. The Mexican DJ and producer Rebolledo, who forms one half of Pachanga Boys with Superpitcher and is a leading figure in Matias Aguayo's Cómeme collective, bought Gonzalez's album in Tokyo and fell in love with it. "It was raw and powerful, a perfect match for my taste… simple and strong," he said, giving an idea of what to expect from Momento Drive.

Think of this mix as a car—perhaps that vintage Porsche on the cover—hurtling across a flat desert for days and nights, through baking sun and violent thunderstorms. The forward momentum is constant—even when the beats drop out, the tension, the sense of barely restrained torque, is exquisite—but the wider environment is constantly evolving. The mix peaks in Rebolledo's remix of Red Axes' "Caminho De Dreyfus," whose synths sound like jagged bolts of lightning. By that point, you've already travelled long distances, from Wally Gonzalez's psychedelic opener through Wolfgang Voigt's avant-garde techno and the unhinged art-funk of Rebolledo's "Windsurf, Sunburn And Dollar."

Momento Drive calls to mind James Murphy and 2ManyDJs, but the most useful comparison is Optimo. Like the Scottish duo, Mauricio Rebolledo knows three key things: how to patiently tease out the drama of each track as it comes in, how to use space rather than simply filling it, and how to bring such eclectic material together with a unifying aesthetic. There are, for instance, a lot of live drums, serrated analogue synths and strutting disco basslines running like connective tissue through this bizarre mix of tracks. As a DJ, such control of the material is the difference between merely putting some music together, and creating a moment that is definitively yours—between playing tracks and remaking them in your own vision.